LONDON — You'd never know from walking around Thursday in one of the world's busiest cities, at least in the most popular tourist spots, that the NFL was 72 hours away from packing Wembley Stadium with 85,000 fans for the second time in a month.

It's not just that Jaguars and San Francisco 49ers' fans were just starting to descend on London, but the buzz for Sunday's international game in the United Kingdom had yet to hit with any force.

"I knew there was an NFL game this weekend because I'm into fantasy football, but I didn't know who was playing," said Len Pereira, a Columbus, Ohio, resident who was here on a business vacation.

It's not like you'd know by scanning the U.K. newspapers or television. Even the NFL's all-powerful brand settles for leftovers when there's English Premier League soccer drama (Crystal Palace manager Ian Holloway resigned, just two days after losing to Shad Khan's Fulham FC 4-1) to break down from all angles. And, by George, the 49ers and winless Jaguars have no shot at upstaging the birth of a royal baby.

"An NFL game wouldn't be a massive news thing here," said London resident Mark Smiley, walking with his wife, Anna, past Buckingham Palace to a hotel to celebrate their wedding anniversary. "The game is three hours long. It's too much stop-and-go for us in the U.K."

While the Super Bowl is a weeklong party in the host city, London is simply too big (population: 8.3 million) and too diverse in its sports and culture to get totally wrapped up far in advance for American football.

That will change come Saturday, when Trafalgar Square in the city's Westminster section stages a popular NFL fan festival. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell will precede that event by hosting a question-and-answer session for fans of both teams.

Since the NFL began taking regular-season games overseas in 2007, the U.K. is gradually warming to the idea of NFL football. For Jaguars' fans looking to turn this road trip into a mini-vacation, London might well go down as the highlight of a dreadful season.

For Collin Giuliani, a 16-year-old from Long Island, being in London is a lifetime memory. He's been a diehard Jaguars' fan since discovering them on television in 2005. To fuel his passion for the team, the high school junior has written nearly 150 stories about them on his website (twentyfoursports.blogspot.com) in the last few years.

So for his 16th birthday on Aug. 1, his parents, George and Anita, felt his allegiance to the Jaguars warranted a family vacation (sister, Brittany, 14, is also here) across the pond.

"[Collin] fell in love with the Jaguars when he was 6, and we just fell in love with him," said George.

The bond was further entrenched when Khan provided them tickets to the 2012 NFL draft party in New York, followed by coach Gus Bradley sending Collin an autographed picture before this season. As season-ticket holders in Section 236, the Guiliani family usually attends four or five home games a year.

"I was absolutely shocked [about going to London]," said Collin. "The Jaguars have been my team from the beginning. I still question [former coach] Jack Del Rio's decision to start [quarterback] Byron Leftwich over the hot hand in David Garrard for that 2005 playoff game against the Patriots."

While the idea of a Jaguars' playoff game now seems like a foreign concept, lifetime season-ticket holders Ernest and Carol Serna have no intention of abandoning their team now. They wore the only Jaguars gear I could spot during a two-hour period spent near Buckingham Palace, Parliament and Westminster Abbey.

"We're not fair-weather fans," said Carol. "We support them through thick and thin."

At 0-7, it's never been thinner for the Jaguars. Maybe with a London commitment through 2016, fans and media in the U.K. will give the Jaguars more than a passing glance.

To all the Jags fans thinking about making the trip across the pond in the next 3 years when we play in London, I think I made a wise choice coming out here. The people here in Dublin certainly know about the game in London this Sunday. And this lifelong Jags fan and Jax native who remembered the day we got this team certainly knows about and are estatic to go to Wembley this Sunday.
A word on this whole NFL Europe direction: at first, I like many Jags fans feared this could be the first step towards a relocation. And I know all the legal and financial reasons why it's unlikely, but I was afraid of it nonetheless. However, there is an entirely different trend occurring that bodes well for all those who think the NFL would expand or a franchise would relocate. The NFL Europe venture started off as 1 game per year. This year it has doubled to two. It's not farfetched to think that after several years, of the 32 NFL teams that play 8 home games per year, that Wembley couldn't host 8 games per year. And I'm not talking about London having their own team or have the same team play 8 times there, but there are 256 regular season games each year. It's not out of the realm of possibility that 8 of those 256 games are played in London each year. The NFL wants to make money by spreading its brand, and this might be a means to that end. Just wishful thinking from a Jags fan and more importantly, a Jacksonville fan.

The mere thought of an NFL team, be it the Jags or any other, being based overseas, sickens me. What a perfect way to ruin the NFL, by trying to spread it to other countries. I cannot comprehend the mindset of some of you commie sickos who want to weld European smegma with our beloved game. Next thing you know they will be trying to incorporate foreign rules. How dare you. How dare you.